Budget

Time for me to jump in here (Eldred and Kathryn you knew I would). What you have been told so far is all absolutely correct. You have the power, they don’t. You just have to be tough. You need to learn to “stand on desks”, my phrase for taking control.
You do not have to talk to these people every time they call. By law they can only call between 8:30 am 9 pm no weekends or holidays. If they call you outside that realm get the name number and tell them you WILL report them. Only pick up the phone once every two weeks or so. As long as they can periodically reach you they can’t say you are being evasive. They are NOT allowed to call you at work either. The second they get rude with you tell them they are not allowed to speak to you in that manner. Thank them for calling and hang up.
Now for how to do it. Four walls first like Eldred said, I will add medications to those 4 walls. Send the letter certified where they have to sign for it, when they call tell them you only have x amount of dollars per month to pay bills with and you need some cooperation from your bill collectors because you have fallen on hard times. Do not give them an exact amount of what you have to pay they will try to get it all and leave the other cheetahs at your backside. NEVER give them access to your banking accounts. They will wipe you out entirely.
If they refuse to cooperate, and they will at first for about 6 months, then tell them sorry you just went to the bottom of the list and politely tell them good-bye. Start with the lowest owed first, don’t worry about interest rates, the object is to get rid of the smaller ones. They will slowly all fall in line.
Read the Total Money Makeover and then read it again. It tells you exactly how to deal with the collectors.
What was said about them being trained to lie and be mean is absolutely the truth. My nephew in law was part of that pond scum society for a while. He quit because his morals were too high to act that way.
You want to know how I know all this? Because we’ve been there. Over $300,000 in debt when we started in January 2009 including our two mortgages. In late February that year my husband and adult son both lost their jobs on the same day from the same company. They were unemployed for a total of 18 months each.
We followed the advice of this group, re-read the TMMO many times and worked the plan while unemployed and beyond. Over the next 7 years my husband and myself were in and out of the hospital, Murphy tried to move in with us, but we stuck to the plan. On December 24,2015 We paid off our last debt in full.
If we can do it in our 60’s you can too, because you are probably a lot younger with more energy to work extra jobs.
Post your budget and we’ll help you to get there too.